Read Online The Gumshoe Diaries by Nicholas Stanton - Free Book Online
Authors: Nicholas Stanton
Ads: Link
the changes she would soon
experience. I watched her interact with family and friends, as they
trod through life in their tenement neighborhood. Their apartment
building was a very modern high rise structure, but it could not
mask the adverse effects of a communist society. Not even with
McDonalds and KFC franchises scattered around town, as they were in
the larger cities, like Shanghai and Beijing.
Such a droll and dreary existence was her
life. I could see straight away that there was little hope of her
ever escaping the future planned for her by proxy as wife, mother,
and shrew, a common fate in much of this sad world. Not to worry
though, she had me to save her from that maudlin destiny. I would
see to it that she never live a life like that. I am puppet master
now, until the moment of her death, I will guide her on a path of
my choosing. How many times have I played this role? How many souls
have I sentenced to purgatory? I stopped counting long ago. It’s
not important.
--
Japanese Village, San Pedro St, Los
Angeles…Tuesday, Feb 17, 2009…2:30pm
--
Any cop will tell you that stake outs are the
worst! Unless you are Lon freaking Chaney, everybody, and I mean
EVERYBODY knows you’re on the job, most likely even the perp. That
is if he or she isn’t completely mental. Sitting in an unmarked car
swilling black coffee and noshing on Krispy Kremes or a dog and
chips from a street vendor is strictly Hollywood sweetheart. If you
want to blend in you have to do your homework. You just can’t show
up in a handyman onesie with a fake mustache and expect to
be invisible. Good police work, specifically good detective work
requires a balanced equation: (i + p + g) / l, that’s equal parts
of instinct, planning, and guts divided by LUCK, the
normalizing element.
Having said that, I adjusted my JETS cap and
walked across 1 st street with a small crowd as the light
changed. I know what you’re thinking, a New York JETS cap in LA, so
much for blending in, right? Well you’d be wrong! It turns
out Little Tokyo is lousy with transplanted New Yorkers, so, a
little Kelly green would likely go unnoticed. It was a minimal risk
at the most. My only real concern was whether or not Lt.
Wanker had any goons tailing me. Now that would be down
right embarrassing, staked out while on a stakeout! Wouldn’t
exactly be a testament to my qualities as a gumshoe. But I digress.
My guy was sitting in a window seat at a popular Shabu Shabu joint
about thirty yards ahead of me. The place was popular with the
locals because the food was good and it was cheap! Of course the
young girls working the hostess station in their Geisha outfits
didn’t hurt any either. You could count on waiting in line twenty
to thirty minutes at this time of day, which worked out perfectly
for my task at hand which was to watch and wait. I was certain that
I wouldn’t have to wait long as I was pretty sure that I was
staking out the right fella.
Now, Marco may not have seen Jai Lai’s cop
friend’s face earlier at Bella Terra, but he did manage to catch
enough of the license plate for me to make a few calls to a buddy
on the job. He didn’t take long to put a name with the squad car in
question. LAPD dispatch is positively anal when it comes to
accounting for city property. Raymond Abernathy, Ray–Ray to his
friends, looked like he was really enjoying his meal, at least from
my cat-bird seat out front as I waited my turn to enter and be
seated. Clearly he wasn’t very worried about being seen since he
was making an absolute spectacle of himself. He had the tablecloth
tucked into his shirt right underneath his chin (both of them), and
I swear I think I could hear him slurping his Miso soup from out
here! Ray-Ray was a fifteen year veteran, spending most of that
time in bunko. But the last two years he’d been assigned to
Hollenbeck’s homicide task force. Now that’s not the usual path to
the big time, most homicide shields came through the narcotics
ranks.
experience. I watched her interact with family and friends, as they
trod through life in their tenement neighborhood. Their apartment
building was a very modern high rise structure, but it could not
mask the adverse effects of a communist society. Not even with
McDonalds and KFC franchises scattered around town, as they were in
the larger cities, like Shanghai and Beijing.
Such a droll and dreary existence was her
life. I could see straight away that there was little hope of her
ever escaping the future planned for her by proxy as wife, mother,
and shrew, a common fate in much of this sad world. Not to worry
though, she had me to save her from that maudlin destiny. I would
see to it that she never live a life like that. I am puppet master
now, until the moment of her death, I will guide her on a path of
my choosing. How many times have I played this role? How many souls
have I sentenced to purgatory? I stopped counting long ago. It’s
not important.
--
Japanese Village, San Pedro St, Los
Angeles…Tuesday, Feb 17, 2009…2:30pm
--
Any cop will tell you that stake outs are the
worst! Unless you are Lon freaking Chaney, everybody, and I mean
EVERYBODY knows you’re on the job, most likely even the perp. That
is if he or she isn’t completely mental. Sitting in an unmarked car
swilling black coffee and noshing on Krispy Kremes or a dog and
chips from a street vendor is strictly Hollywood sweetheart. If you
want to blend in you have to do your homework. You just can’t show
up in a handyman onesie with a fake mustache and expect to
be invisible. Good police work, specifically good detective work
requires a balanced equation: (i + p + g) / l, that’s equal parts
of instinct, planning, and guts divided by LUCK, the
normalizing element.
Having said that, I adjusted my JETS cap and
walked across 1 st street with a small crowd as the light
changed. I know what you’re thinking, a New York JETS cap in LA, so
much for blending in, right? Well you’d be wrong! It turns
out Little Tokyo is lousy with transplanted New Yorkers, so, a
little Kelly green would likely go unnoticed. It was a minimal risk
at the most. My only real concern was whether or not Lt.
Wanker had any goons tailing me. Now that would be down
right embarrassing, staked out while on a stakeout! Wouldn’t
exactly be a testament to my qualities as a gumshoe. But I digress.
My guy was sitting in a window seat at a popular Shabu Shabu joint
about thirty yards ahead of me. The place was popular with the
locals because the food was good and it was cheap! Of course the
young girls working the hostess station in their Geisha outfits
didn’t hurt any either. You could count on waiting in line twenty
to thirty minutes at this time of day, which worked out perfectly
for my task at hand which was to watch and wait. I was certain that
I wouldn’t have to wait long as I was pretty sure that I was
staking out the right fella.
Now, Marco may not have seen Jai Lai’s cop
friend’s face earlier at Bella Terra, but he did manage to catch
enough of the license plate for me to make a few calls to a buddy
on the job. He didn’t take long to put a name with the squad car in
question. LAPD dispatch is positively anal when it comes to
accounting for city property. Raymond Abernathy, Ray–Ray to his
friends, looked like he was really enjoying his meal, at least from
my cat-bird seat out front as I waited my turn to enter and be
seated. Clearly he wasn’t very worried about being seen since he
was making an absolute spectacle of himself. He had the tablecloth
tucked into his shirt right underneath his chin (both of them), and
I swear I think I could hear him slurping his Miso soup from out
here! Ray-Ray was a fifteen year veteran, spending most of that
time in bunko. But the last two years he’d been assigned to
Hollenbeck’s homicide task force. Now that’s not the usual path to
the big time, most homicide shields came through the narcotics
ranks.
Similar Books
